FOSSIL PLANTS. 465 



pear to have collected fossil plants from scientific interest, and 

 it is evident from what I have seen myself in the coal mines 

 of Colchester and Duquoin, that the want of a more general 

 interest in the collection and study of the coal plants, is the 

 main reason of the apparent deficiency of species indicated by 

 the table. 



From the collections made by Prof. A. H. Worthen, Mr. 

 Joseph Even and myself, there have been procured already 

 some data which are worth recording. 



The number of new species, including those which, though 

 described from Europe, are new for America, is already propor- 

 tionally as great as in the enumeration of the coal plants of 

 Pennsylvania — fully 50 per cent. This is a new evidence of 

 the riches of the American coal flora. It proves, at the same 

 time, that we are acquainted only with a small number of spe- 

 cies of fossil plants, compared with what we may expect to find 

 hereafter. 



The numerous and remarkable new species found within the 

 ironstone concretions of Grundy county seem to indicate that 

 the fossil plants preserved in the shales and sandstone of our 

 Coal Measures represent only a part, and perhaps a proportion- 

 ally small one, of the whole flora of the Carboniferous epoch. 

 The maceration has apparently entirely destroyed all the spe-. 

 cies whose tissue was not hard and woody. Some of these soft 

 remains have been left in broken pieces, as the nuclei of iron 

 concretions; but many, without doubt, will remain always 

 unknown to us. This conclusion is already indicated by the 

 great amount of fruits or nutlets which we find in various strata 

 of the Coal Measures, and which can not be referred to any 

 species known to us by their leaves or other organs. 



In considering the fossil plants of Illinois according to their 

 stratigraphical and geographical distribution, we may still 

 remark : 



1st. That in Illinois we have, for the first time, the oppor- 

 tunity of studying the plants of Carboniferous strata lower than 



59 Oct. 9, ISCfi. 



